.(^707 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




HoUinger 

pH8.5 

Mill Run F3-1 955 



241 
:7 B7 
jpy 1 



CONCORD AND THE AMERICAN 
REVOLUTION 



AN ORATION 



DELIVERED ON THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY- 
FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF CONCORD FIGHT 



APRIL 19, 1900 



CHARLES Ji BONAPARTE 






WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY PRESS 
BALTIMORE 



fl 






PREFATORY NOTE. 

The events of April 19th, 1775, have given rise to much dis- 
cussion and some controversy respecting matters of personal 
or local, rather than of general, interest : it is, perhaps, needless 
to say that as to such matters I make no claim to ispeak with 
authority. There are two subjects, however, on which a word 
of explanation may not be superfluous. 

I speak oi the minute-men as ''militia," in the sense which 
would justify the same term if applied to our National Guard 
or the English Volunteers or Yeomanry : all may be fitly called 
''militia" in contradistinction to regular troops, but in each 
case there was or is a different force legally entitled to the 
name. Had hostilities commenced a few years earlier, the dis- 
tinction miglht have been of some practical importance, for the 
minute-men were organized, in the first instance, partly, at least, 
because of doubts how far the militia, formed under Royal au- 
thority and, in theory, commanded by the Royal Governor, 
would, in all cases, obey promptly and surely the popular 
authorities. For these doubts there may have been then some 
reason, but any difference in sentiment once existing between 
the two forces had disappeared long before the day of Lexing- 
ton and Concord; the King's policy had reduced his friends 
everywhere in New England to a hopeless minority and the 
so-called "Tooes" had been eliminated from the militia as 
effectually as from all civil positions of public trust : the minute- 
men constituted, for practical purposes, a part of the militia. 



which in some locahties was thus organized, and elsewhere 
more nearly in accordahce with the Colonial laws, but was all 
alike in sympathy with the popular cause and in ready obedi- 
ence to the Provincial Congress. 

My reference to the Quebec Bill is made with a full apprecia- 
tion of the fact that tihe distrust and alarm excited by this 
measure in NciW England were caused by political apprehen- 
sions no less than by religious prejudices: the form oi govern- 
ment established by the Bill in Canada was very generally be- 
lieved to be what the King. wished, and intended whenever he 
could, to impose on the Colonies. It must be owned that the 
denunciation oi this Bill by the Continental Congress for its 
concessions to the Canadian Catholics appears to have been a 
rather disingenuous, though undoubtedly forcible, appeal to the 
strong "No-Popery" feeling oif the English people; but I see 
no reason to suspect the New England ministers of the like 
insincerity ; in their case the discussion undoubtedly served to 
fan into flame embers of sectarian bitterness smouldering but 
yet alive. 

C. J. B. 



Concord and the American Revolution 



AN ORATION 

DELIVERED ON THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY 
OF CONCORD FIGHT, 

April 19, igoo, 



CHARLES J. BONAPARTE. 



To-day we look to the rock whence we were hewn : we 
praise famous men and our fathers that begat us, because, 
through what they did and suffered on this day, the American 
Nation was born. On the vigil of that great birthday the 
dwellers in this land were, in truth, ''Englishmen of New Eng- 
land :'' ere the next sunset they owned and assured to their 
children hopes and memories, thoughts of pride and sadness, 
in brief, a national consciousness, wherein Englishmen could 
have no part: on tihat evening Englishmen in New England 
were strangers and enfemies. The story which gives meaning 



to our meeting is now an old story, but again it claims a hear- 
ing, for it tells us how and why we are Americans. 

Each of the three great civil wars among men of English 
speech was forerun by a season of anxious, gloomy, painful 
calm as the storm lowered before it broke. The dread issues 
were already joined; argument and compromise and judicial 
umpirage had been tried, and had failed; all felt, though all 
would not owni, that only the sword's judgment remained, and 
the hand of each disputant lay on the hilt. Yet the blade 
lingered in its scabbard; both parties shrank back from actual 
bloodshed, and, while they paused and parleyed, kindly men 
still longed, hoped, prayed for peace. When in January of 
1642 Charles I left Whitehall war was certain, but only in 
July did the Parliament order levies for servioe against him, 
only in August did he raise the Royal Standard; and mean- 
time men as wise as Falkland and Clarendon yet strove for an 
accommodation. The South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, 
adopted on December 21st, i860, was, we can now see, a vir- 
tual declaration of war, but only in the following April did 
the cannon of Sumter suddenly awaken the country from a 
trance of amazement, grief and peaceful yearnings to the grim 
task of national preservation. 

The period of sullen, unrestful quiet which ushered in the 
American Revolution commenced in Alassachusetts on Octo- 
ber 7th, 1774, when the members-elect of the General Court, 
having gone through the empty form of waiting two days at 
Salem for the Royal Governor to qualify them, elected John 
Hancock as their presiding officer, and then, in the words of 
their Journal : 

"Voted, That the members aforesaid do now resolve them- 
selves into a Provincial Congress, to be joined by such other 
persons as may have been, or shall be chosen for that purpose, 
to take into consideration the dangerous and alarming situation 



of public affairs in the province, and to consult and determine 
on such measures as they shall judge will tend to promote the 
true interests of his majesty in the peace, welfare and pros- 
perity of the province. 

''Voted, That the Congress be adjourned to the meeting- 
house in Coincord." 



For six months thereafter two governments were face to 
face in Miassachusetts, the King's in Boston, where a strong 
garrison sustained its authority, the People's at Concord or in 
Cambridge, voluntarily obeyed by all the rest of the province. 

In the closely analoigous situation which existed in 1861 
throughout the seceded Staites, the profound sagacity of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, or rather, perhaps, his close, intuitive sympathy 
with the feelings of the people he served, made clear to his 
mind the immense moral advantage to be gained in the cer- 
tain and impending confliot by those who should not strike 
the first blow. In his Inaugural Address, whilst firmly assert- 
ing the perpetuity of the Union and the rebellious nature of 
the whole movement for separation, he yet announced his pur- 
pose to use force only if assailed with force. He would pro- 
tect Federal property, collect Federal revenues, maintain order 
in the territory under Federal jurisdiction. 

"But, beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there 
will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the peo- 
ple anywhere." 

And he added : 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not 
in imine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Govern- 
ment will not assail you. You can have no conflict without 
being yourselves the aggressors." 



The Colonists of 1775 had to deal, not with an Abraham Lin- 
coln, but with a George III. Of this Prince, Mr. Emerson 
said, with his admirable force and insight : 

"In the year 1775, we had many enemies and many friends 
in England; but our one benefactor was King George the 
Third. The time had arrived for the political severance of 
Am-erica, that it might play its part in the history of the globe ; 
and the inscrutable Divine Providence gave an insane king to 
England. In the resistance of the colonies, he alone was im- 
movable on the question of force. England was so dear to 
us that the colonies could only be absolutely united by violence 
from England; and only one man could compel the resort to 
violence. So the king became insane." 

George III lived many years and died insane, but it were 
nearer truth to say that American Independence caused his 
madness than that his madness caused American Independence : 
he was never more himself, never showed more clearly what 
manner of man he was made than when he forced national life 
on our fathers. We are now old. enough and strong enough to 
be just: he was a man of worthy purpose, of strict morals, of 
sincere piety ; according to his lights, he was a good man ; but 
his lights were dim and flickering. Proud, prejudiced and 
stupid, always prone to hold the promptings of his passions 
for the voice of conscience and to make a point of honor of 
obstinacy in folly, he mounted the throne at a moment of 
peculiar corruption and meanness in the political life of Britain. 
He found authority and honors usurped in turn by a few selfish, 
unscrupulous and greedy noblemen, who gained and lost power 
through the vicissitudes and the perfidies of a ''Spoils" system, 
differing from our own in incidents but not in essence. The 
aim of his early years was to free the Crown from this degrad- 
ing tutelage and, for a time and in a measure, he succeeded, 
but, like some professed reformers of later days, only by mak- 

8 



ing ihimself a great part of the thing to be reformed. He sup- 
planted the "Rings" of the Whig aristocracy by adopting their 
methods; during the years of his personal ascendency in the 
government he may not be unfairly described as a crowned 
"Boss." All branches of the public service and both Houses 
of Parliament swarmed with "the King's friends," in other 
words, his creatures and parasites ; and yet, as it is always and 
everywhere the nature of a Boss to dislike and distrust ability 
and strength, his advisers in the days of his real power were 
ever small men; he loved and, while he could, he chose pur- 
blind counsellors, incapable ministers, bungling generals ; me- 
diocrity of intellect and servility of character were then pass- 
ports to Royal favor. Such a m^^an could have nothing of Lin- 
coln's patience with misguided fellow-countrymen, nothing of 
Lincoln's tenderness for the momentary unreason of a free 
people. 

"He ever warred with freedom and the free" 
"Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes," 
"So that the)^ uttered the word 'Liberty!' " 
"Found George the Third their first opponent ..." 

His one remedy for disaffection in the colonies was always 
force ; at first, force threatened ; when threats had proven vain, 
force in act. He constantly urged successive ministers, gov- 
ernors, generals to deal a blow at the universal, though pacific, 
insurrection and its leaders, and at last General Gage prepared 
to meet his master's wishes. 

This peaceful inland town became during the autumn and 
winter of 1774 the true Capital of Massachusetts. Here the 
Committees of Safety and of Supplies of the Provincial Con- 
gress gathered together a large mass of stores, arms and muni- 
tions of war in readiness for the day of need, which all felt 
must come, though few or none would hasten its coming; and 

9 



here, or within a Httle distance, were constantly the members 
of those committees, the most prominent and active popular 
leaders in the province. At this point the Royal Governor 
determined to strike; by a swift and secret night march he 
hoped to suirprise the town, to destroy the accumulated stores, 
and, perhaps, if fortune favored him, to seize and bring back 
to prison and punishment some of those who inspired and 
guided the colony's resistance. The execution of this project 
was finally fixed for the night of April i8th, but during the day 
General Gage became aware that the townspeople suspected his 
purpose, which, in truth, had been conjectured both within 
Boston and without for several days. He ordered all the roads 
to be heavily picketed and strictly forbade anyone to leave the 
town ; but such tardy precautions were O'f little avail against a 
whole community of quick-witted Yankees, and had been anti- 
cipated by the patriotism and foresight of Paul Revere. As 
that unsolicited herald of their coming rode off into the mid- 
night, eight hundred British soldiers under the command of 
Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Smith, set forth from Boston on 
the fateful expedition which was to fix the course of history 
and give a new nation to the world. 

Smith's force marched rapidly through a clear, moon-lit 
night of an exceptionally mild April, but, as it advanced, its 
coimmander became convinced that his purpose was no secret 
and his coming would be no surprise. In remote homesteads 
lights glimmered and watch-dogs barked as men awakened 
their neighbors with Revere's news ; alarm bells and signal guns 
and beacons called together the minute men in the country 
towns, and along the lanes and by-wa,ys dim figures, mounted 
and on foot, hurried to obey the summons or bear on the tid- 
ings. Colonel Smith hastened onwards, but sent word to his 
commander that the whole country was aroused and strong 
reinforcements would be needed ; but for this message the first 

10 



scene of the Revolution would have almost certainly ended as 
did its last at Yorktown. 

In the gray dawn of that eventful morning befell its first 
tragedy. Some sixty of the Lexington minute-men, under 
their Captain, John Parker, had gathered on the town green, 
when Major Pitcairn, whom Smith had sent with six compa- 
nies of grenadiers, in advance oi the main column, suddenly 
appeared and, riding forward, commanded them in the King's 
name to disperse. They looked for orders to their commander, 
received none and stood still. Pitcairn ordered the grenadiers 
to fire, at first over the heads of the militia afterwards upon 
them. Eight of the minute-men were killed and ten wounded ; 
Parker then ordered them to disperse, but before obeying some 
half dozen fired without orders, and two British soldiers were 
slightly wounded. From the scene of this exploit of ill omen 
Smith's whole force now hurried forward to Concord. 

Here there had been little sleep ; about two hours after mid- 
night the alarm bell was rung by Amos Medvin, the sentinel on 
duty, to whom Dr. Samuel Prescott brought word from Revere 
that the troops were coming. Reports, growing more and 
more definite, of the intended movement, had reached Concord 
for several days previously, and on the day before the commit- 
tee had directed that the stores and pubHc property should be 
removed and distributed among nine other towns; but this 
measure had been only partially carried out ; when the town 
was roused by Melvin's bell, the first thought of every patriot 
was to complete the removal, and every available vehicle was 
called into requisition for this purpose. What could not be 
carried away at such short notice was hastily but effectually 
concealed, so effectually that Colonel Smith discovered but an 
insignificant remnant when he searched the town. Much pri- 
vate property was also sent away, or hidden, and many of the 
non-combatants retired to the neighboring woods, so that the 



British soldiers found Concord well-nigh deserted. Meantime 
the several companies of minute-men mustered on the Common 
were joined by some militia from Acton and Lincoln and took 
up a position on the Lexington road. Soon after sunrise the 
soldiers appeared. As they approached, Colonel James Barrett, 
who commanded all the forces in the vicinity by appointment 
of the Congress, ordered the militia to fall back to an emi- 
nence called Ponquetasset Hill, and await reinforcements ; as 
a result of this retreat, the British entered the town unopposed. 
Colonel Smith stationed three companies of grenadiers at the 
North Bridge and a smaller force at the South Bridge to se- 
cure his rear, and then proceeded, with but scanty success, to 
search the town for the stores he was ordered to seize. Three 
hours' rummaging, on the part of his men, how^ever, cost the 
colonists only thirty barrels of flour, sixteeen carriage wheels, 
the trunnions of three cannon, some wooden spoons and trench- 
ers and five hundred pounds of ball, and he was fain to eke out 
his achievement by cutting down the liberty pole and setting 
fire to the Court-house. 

As the morning wore on several other companies of minute- 
men and many individuals joined Colonel Barrett's command 
at Ponquetasset Hill, so that he found himself at the head of 
somie four hundred men and felt he had a sufficient force to 
assail the regulars; should this be done? A brief, grave con- 
ference was held between the principal offlcers and some promi- 
nent civilians of the neighborhood: as they awaited its issue 
we may picture the thoughts of the men who stood around in 
arms. These men were Englishmen; in England were the 
graves of their fathers, the homes of their kinsmen ; to England 
they had ever looked for comfort and protection ; in the past glo- 
ries, the present greatness of England each one of them claimed 
a share. Some were old soldiers of the French War; some 
had fought with savages under the English flag beside Eng- 

12 



lish soldiers. The King of England was their own prince, for 
whom their mothers had taught them to pray, whose name was 
a household word to all, whose dignity and honor had ever con- 
cerned every one among them. And now the hour was come 
to put all this part of their lives at once and forever behind 
them. Yes, that hour had, indeed, come; the time for thought 
of loyalty or conciliation had passed — passed never to return. 
Their King waged war upon them ; the smoke from fires of de- 
vastation curled up amid their homes, before their eyes ; the 
blood of their friends and neighbors lay, half dried, upon the 
grass at Lexington. They could be — they were^ — ^Englishmen 
no longer. God willed it ; His Will be done ! 

As thought the men so said their leaders, and Colonel Bar- 
rett ordered them to advance on the North Bridge, adding, as 
his own farewell to Old England, the injunction not to fire 
first. The command was then assumed by Major John Butt- 
rick, although Lieutenant-Colonel John Robinson, of Westford, 
accompanied him as a volunteer. As they approached the 
bridge the British grenadiers withdrew to its further side and 
began to loosen the planks ; Buttrick ordered his men to hasten, 
and the grenadiers fired, at first, as at Lexington, some harmless 
shots to serve as warning, then others, which wounded two 
minute-men, then a volley, which killed Isaac Davis, of Acton, 
captain of the leading company, and one of his men. When 
they fell beside him, Buttrick called out: 'Tire, Comrades! 
In God's name, fire !" and the war of the American Revolution 
began. 

Three of the grenadiers were killed, nine were wounded; 
the survivors retreated, in some haste and confusion, towards 
the town. The Americans pursued them a short distance be- 
yond the bridge, then halted and fell back to a position of some 
strength, where they ajwaited an attack. Colonel Smith seems 
to have thought of making one, but he was embarrassed and 

13 



alarmed by the isolation of his command and the open hostility 
of the country, and after irresolutely marching and counter- 
marching his now tired men in various directions, at noon he 
began his retreat. 

He may be blameless, but his expedition was a blunder worse 
than a crime. It convicts the dull, angry prince who urged it, 
the dull pedantic officer who planmed and ordered it, of such 
hopeless blindness, of such fatal delusions as to the things and 
the men wherewith they dealt, that to see such men in such 
places, to see a great State thus made small, an empire thus 
mutilated and all the fruits of statecraft and valor thus squan- 
dered will awaken, in some minds, greater indignation than the 
sin of David or the treason of Macbeth. Every eye and every 
ear in English America was then bent on Massachusetts; 
throughout Southern New England, at New York, at Phila- 
delphia, by the shores of the Delaware and the Chesapeake, 
through the Carolinas to the far Savannah, men waited breath- 
less with Patrick Henry for that North wind which might bring 
them the clash of arms. When this came, it swept the whole 
country as a whirlwind and before it all respect for royal au- 
thority, all loyalty to the King or the Mother Country van- 
ished hke chaff in the hurricane's path. As spread tidings of 
the blood spilt at Lexington, of the open strife at Concord, 
King George's realm shriveled, and when all the colonies which 
were yesterday his knew what he had willed and his soldiers 
had done, they were already, in all but name, Free and Inde- 
pendent States. 

General Gage had proof ere nightfall what his master's policy 
and his own obedience meant to both. As Colonel Smith re- 
tired from Concord the Americans advanced and, moving by 
a shorter route, came into collision with his force at Merriam's 
Corner, a little more than a mile from the town; the sharp 
skirmish which ensued was followed by another and yet an- 

14 



other, at ever shorter intervals, until the rattle of musketry 
became practically continuous and almost every step of the 
returning column was marked by a blood stain. In their 
morning's w^ork Smith and Pitcairn had sown, the dragon's 
teeth, and all about them the earth gave up armed men. Fresh 
enemies awaited the British at every cross-road, hurried to 
assail them by every lane and wood-path, were hidden in every 
thicket and hedgerow. Harassed on all sides, the weary sol- 
diers moved slowly towards Boston, parting each moment from 
dying comrades, adding at every rod to the gruesome load of 
the wagons in which their wounded painfully jolted. At Lex- 
ington they were fiercely attacked by the survivors of Parker's 
company and paid a heavy 'reckoning for their deed at dawn. 
At this point, surrounded and sore beset, they were well-nigh 
brought to bay ; but, encounaged by their officers and fighting 
to better advantage as their foes came to closer quarters, they 
broke through the circle of flame and struggled onwards, until, 
about a half mile beyond Lexington, they saw with delight the 
red coats Oif friends. In compliance with Smith's request, 
though rather tardily, Gage had sent to his succor twelve hun- 
dred infantry and two cannon, under the command of Lord 
Percy, and, sheltered by these fresh troops, the distressed col- 
umn, decimated and now completely spent, had a few mo- 
ments' respite. *" 

Percy's arrival saved Smith's command from destruction, 
otherwise certain, but it did not end the conflict. He made no 
attempt to hold his ground, but, after a half hour's breathing 
spell for Smith's exhausted men, the combined force resumed 
its march to the sea. Meantime the Americans also were rein- 
forced ; indeed, Percy was now pursued and assailed by a 
little army of minute-mxen, and, although they were loosely 
organized and ill equipped, the intelligence and courage of the 
men filled the want of leadership and arms. The combat grew 

15 



hotter and more deadly as the shadows lengthened ; the British 
suffered conistantly more and more severely from the fatal aim 
of marksmen who luirked behind rocks and trees, sheds and 
fences, houses and barns, and, exasperated by the relentless 
assaults of their unseen foes, often fired the buildings which 
might afford these shelter. As has frequently happened since 
to British soldiers, the loss of officers was disproportionate to 
their number, and Lord Percy ordered such as were mounted 
to walk with the men. Finally, just at sunset, the sorely-tried 
troops reached Charlestown and were sheltered by the guns of 
their ships. General WilHam Heath, who had assumed com- 
mand of the Americans, here stopped the pursuit; when the 
stars again shone the Royal Governor was besieged in Boston 
with all his soldiers, and, in Massachusetts, King George 
reigned over such ground as their bayonets guarded, and no 
more. 

From the story of Concord Fight our thoughts turn natu- 
rally to the American Revolution. To form any fair judg- 
ment of its fruits to mankind, much more to adequately discuss 
them, one should live later than our time or be gifted with 
seraphic foresig^ht. The myriad streams of human destiny 
flowing from that fountain-head may have but begun their 
course ; as they bear' us and our brethren onwards, we may 
guess and dream and prophesy whither they sweep us, but, as to 
the appointed end and way the wisest man can but answer with 
the prophet, and the wisest will be first to thus answer: *'0 
Lord God ! Thou knowest." We may, however, note its char- 
acteristics, for the world has now seen many revolutions, a:nd 
among these that one wrought by our fathers, that one which 
fashioned us as we are made, had features which set it apart 
from others, and to which we, at least, may with profit pay 
heed. 

i6 



First, let us bear in mind that it was pre-eminently practical ; 
those who fought and suffered to consummate it knew pre- 
cisely for what they fought and suffered. There was nothing 
gorgeously, seductively vague in their aims ; their goal was 
seen clearly, not shadowed by clouds. To a sentimentalist the 
quarrel mig'ht seem commonplace, even sordid; it was a ques- 
tion of money ; should the King put his hand in their pockets ? 
That was the issue. Doubtless they spent to resist him a thou- 
sand pounds for every penny he asked of them, but yet the 
American Revolution was essentially a revolution of taxpayers. 
The King of Great Britain and Ireland was not, indeed, driven 
from our shores by "business kings" or "money kings" or any 
"kings" oif Wall Street, nor yet by "multi-millionaires" or 
"Syndicates" or "Trusts" or any other fungus growths of our 
commercial civilization ; but neither was he vanquished by 
sans-ciilottes or armed paupers. Yonder minute-man was a 
man of modest substance; his right arm guarded what his 
hands had earned, and, as such, he gave his money, his labor, 
his life, not for abstractions or phantasies, not for anything 
hazy or unreal, but for plain, definite principles based on ac- 
cepted facts. 

Secondly, our Revolution was, perhaps, of all those known 
to history the most conservative. Qur fathers ceased to be 
Englishmen becauise thus only could they safeguard to them- 
selves and their children the traditional rights of Englishmen 
which their fathers had bequeathed them. They were no reck- 
less innovators; ra ap^ala r)6r] KpareLTco; ancient customs 
should prevail, but, with men of their blood and speech, free- 
dom is the most ancient of customs. Of time immemorial 
Englishmen had ever claimed and exercised the rig^ht to tax 
themselves ; they had given of their substance to their rulers as 
their own conscience and best judgment bade them; were Eng- 
lishmen less apt for freedom when they had crossed the seas? 

17 



Was their birthright lost on the passage, or were they unwor- 
thy, to rule themselves because, unaided, they had subdued a 
wilderness and added a realm to tlie King's dominions? King. 
George was the innovator; they fought against him to defend 
rights consecrated by antiquity, no less than by justice. And, 
remember well, they fought for their rights, not the rights of 
all men or of any other men. Frenchmen to the north of them, 
Spaniards to the south of them, might be taxed at their King's 
will, ruled as their King listed; no English colonist lost time 
in thinking whether such things were right or was minded to 
waste blood and treasure to make them dififerent, unless they 
should be a menace to himself. 

Of yet more moment is it to note that the American Revolu- 
tion was the work of men whose lives were moulded by belief 
in revealed religion. When Amos Melvin rang the alarm bell, 
the first man to answer his summons was the minister, Wil- 
liam Emerson, his gun on his shoulder ; his act bore testimo^ny 
to the patriotism of his class and their prominence in the asser- 
tion of popular rights ; throughout New England almost every 
pulpit was a rostrum, every preacher a tribune of the people. 
And as, in this struggle, piety gladly lent a hand to patriotism, 
so patriotism claimed earnestly and confidently the support of 
piety. The minUte-man. was not an atheist or an agnostic or 
an unbeliever of any shade or form. He had not, indeed, seen 
the Reign of Terror or the Commune, but, before their day, he 
knew their lesson. For him it was no matter of doubt that 
except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build 
it ; except the Lord keep the city, the watchm^an waketh in vain ; 
he disowned his King on earth in the name of the King of 
Kings in Heaven. 

A significant contrast may be here noted. The men who re- 
sisted Charles I were inspired by a profound and lively religious 
faith ; this is no less true of those who resisted George HL 



But the English Civil War inflamed fanaticism and sectarian 
hatred, and ended, at least for the moment, in spiritual tyranny ; 
the American Revolution served, more, perhaps, than any 
other event of history, to rebuke intolerance and soften bigotry : 
among its fruits was and remains a freedom to worship God 
surpassing any which the Old World had known until taught 
by the example of the New. The same causes at different 
times had made the several English colonies in America 
refuges for exiles of diverse faiths ; when the Revolution fused 
them all into a nation adherents of each community accepted as 
fellow- countrymien men whose creed was not as theirs, and 
from this fellowship came quickly mutual affection and mutual 
respect. In 1776, Reverend Jeremiah Day, of New Preston, 
Connecticut, a fairly typical pastor of the times, addressed a 
communication to his parishioners, which illustrates at once the 
ardent patriotism and earnest desire for the triumph of the 
national arms which animated the clergy of the established 
churches of New England and the growth of good-will to- 
wards Americans of other creeds which these sentiments 
induced. He said : 

"Considering the greatness of the necessary expenses of the 
country at the present day, and the difficulty of the times, and 
being willing to contribute my proportion towards the public 
expenses, and to encourage the glorious cause in which we 
are engaged, I am induced to give five pounds lawful money 
the present year to this society, to be deducted out of my salary 
for the year 1776, which is more than two shillings on the 
pound of all my ratable estate, and I furthermore make declara- 
tion and promise that all those who are bound by law to pay 
rates to me, but profess to be of any other religious denomina- 
tion from us, if they will produce good and creditable certifi- 
cates that they have paid for the support of the Gospel to the 
amount of their rates to me for preaching which they have en- 
joyed within the compass of this year, that is to say, from the 

19 * 



first day of February, 1776, to the first day of February, 1777, 
shall, in consequence of an application made to me for the 
above-mentioned year, receive a full discharge of their minis- 
terial taxes. That they should be required to pay something 
for the support of the Gospel is reasonable, inasmuch as a 
preached Gospel is a benefit to civil society as well as to the 
souls of men." 

Three years later, in a letter to a brother minister suggesting 
an improved method of providing by law for their maintenance, 
the same worthy pastor and citizen uses language yet more 
noteworthy : 

'Tf the religion of Jesus has l^een the occasion of disturbing 
the peace of society, it is 'not because there is any proper ten- 
dency thereto, but because of the corruptions of man counter- 
acting the genuine tendency of religion which requires its vota- 
ries to live peaceably with all men. As to that objection against 
my plan, that it favors heretics equally with the orthodox, I 
say, let the heretics enjoy this privilege. The way to destroy 
heretics is not by depriving them of the common privileges of 
mankind, but by the force of reason and truth." 

That experience of common citizenship with men of another 
faith which could render opinions such as these regarding 
"heretics" endurable to New England Puritans made them in- 
dulgent, nay, did more, made them just to the Episcopalians of 
Virginia and the Quakers of Pennsylvania, even to the Catho- 
olics of Maryland. Yes, only twenty-five years after Judge 
Dudley's bequest to Harvard, Papists, rank Papists, the Spawn 
of the Pit, the Dupes of the Lewd One of Babylon, were deemed 
worthy of "the cominon privileges of mankind" in a free coun- 
try, as they were found ready to bear an ungrudging part in 
the labors and dangers and sacrifices which made it free. The 
rapid change in popular sentiment on this subject showed how 
swiftly and strongly worked the leaven of national conscious- 

* 20 



ness. In 1774 the Quebec Bill was vigorously denounced from 
nearly every pulpit in New England because it recognized the 
long-established property rights of the Canadian Ohuirch and 
the equal civil rights of Catholics with Protestants in a province 
where there lived then 400 of the latter and 150,000 of the for- 
mer, and aguinst the protection thus afforded by law to "a reli- 
g-ion fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets "the first Conti- 
nental Congress formally protested ; less than two years later 
the second Continental Congress invited a priest, previously 
earnest in the work of the Society of Jesus, afterwards the first 
Bishop and first Archbishop of the American hierarchy, to 
promise, as the envoy of the Congress to the same Canadians, 
should they make common cause with their old enemies, re- 
spect for their institutions and privileges and full religious 
liberty. What had happened meantime? Lexington and Con- 
cord! 

Finally, let it not be forgotten that the war of the American 
Revolution was an honest, a truthful war. Our fathers fought 
for their own welfare and that of their children, for the liberty 
they inherited from the past and, in duty and honor, should hand 
on to posterity. They claimed to rule themselves, first, because 
they had been thus ruled since their country had been the 
home of white men ; secondly, because they could be and would 
be better ruled by themselves than by a King or a Parliament 
beyond the seas ; and, since the King and the Parliament of 
Great Britain would not suffer them to do as they would with 
their own, they shook off King and Parliament and Britain 
itself, and faced the world a free people. Demanding this, and 
only this, they were forced to rely on no misleading generaliza- 
tions, on no strained and sweeping theories, to ignore no facts, 
to call to their aid no form of sophistry or insincerity for their 
justification. They affected nothing, suppressed nothing, con- 
cealed nothing regarding their aims and motives, consciously 



or unconsciously, as to others or as to themselves. The utter- 
ance of their diplomacy might well be, and, in fact, was : ''Yea, 
yea; nay, nay;" there was no room in their case and no need 
for studied reticence, for voluntary obscurity, for artifice or 
deception in any shape in speech or writing; they knew them- 
selves, they told all men what they asked and why they asked 
this. As Governor of Massachusetts General Gage issued, in 
1774, the customary annual proclamation "for the. encourage- 
ment of piety and virtue and the prevention of vice, profaneness 
and immorality," but on this occasion added, foT the first time, 
"hypocrisy" to the catalogue of sins against which he warned 
the people of this province. This petty and impolitic act was 
considered, and with reason, a studied insult to the ministers, 
and, as such, awakened a slightly ludicrous but formidable re- 
sentment ; but, whatever its motive, the counsel was good. To 
earn the respect, whether of others or of themselves, a people, 
as a man, must speak and act and think the truth; Americans 
merited and gained such respect in their first war. 

In the admirable Concord oration of Mr. Curtis, that oration 
which, for those who heard it, must surely make another seem 
as the reverse side of a tapestry, there is mentioned a young 
minute-man of twenty-two, who, after serving with conspicu- 
ous gallantry during the entire day, was mortally wounded just 
before its close. He sent a message to the girl he loved, a short 
and very simple message, which yet deserves a thought : "Tell 
her," said the dying boy to his father, "tell her that I am glad 
I turned out this morning." May we rightly share his glad- 
ness when he felt his allotted task was done and well done, his 
free offering was forever accepted? In this day of Hague con- 
ferences and arbitration treaties may we, we who stand on the 
threshold of the twentieth century, we who hear many words 
about the barbarism of warfare, may we find cause to rejoice 
when we picture that shadowed home, when we see the tears fall 



on that young grave, when we remember that as he fell, so fell 
many thousands, as mourned those who loved him so mourned 
a whole people for seven long, weary, bloody years? Yes, we 
may, we should ; such memories are our truly priceless treasure, 
more precious a thousandfold than wealth and comfort, than 
knowledge and material progress, than art and refinement of 
manners. All these things are good, but all of them have been 
denied to nations which the world could have ill spared; that 
which is truly vital, that which, if wanting, can be replaced by 
no vanity of riches and no pride of learning, no grandeur and 
no beauty is — men ; a national existence which lacks these 

*'Is but as ivy leaves around the ruined turret-wreath," 

"All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath:" 

a living crust on a dead core. 

When the wisdom of those who framed our Constitution de- 
clared a well-regulated militia necessary to the security of a 
free State, there was a deeper meaning to their words than all 
readily see; these words are no less true for times of peace 
and tranquillity than for times of war or discord. In such a 
state military virtues are a part of civic worth; a despotism or 
an oligarchy may have effeminate subjects defended and over- 
awed by armed hirelings, but in a democratic republic no man 
is a good citizen who does not feel himself a soldier in reserve ; 
he only is truly fit to share in the government of a free people 
who will leave his interests and his pleasures, his home and 
all he loves, will give up everything which makes life precious 
and, if need be, life itself, not in levity or anger, not for vain- 
glory or mere hire, but in humble, cheerful, unquestioning obe- 
dience to his country's call to arms. Are Americans such men ? 
For answer look to the record of lives and deaths like those of 
him whose parting words you have just heard. To him we 
may say, as the Jews to Maccabaeus : 

22, 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 




011 712 438 1 



"Though thou art fallen, while we are free" 

"Thou shalt not taste of death!" 

"The generous blood that flowed from thee" 

"Disdained to sink beneath;" 

"Within our veins its currents be," 

"Thy spirit on our breath!" 

If then, brethren, you see too often in our public life but a 
swinish scuffle for sordid, selfish gain, you find among our pub- 
lic men figures for the slow, unmoving finger of scorn to point 
at, there are wafted to you with voices of public opinion breaths 
of foulness and malice and lies, you are sickened by the greed, 
the vulgar vanity, the cant, the falsehood, the grossness which 
degrade and poison our national being, I bid you look to the 
minute-man! He is the real American; he is our true fellow- 
countryman ; he lives in the Nation's life and, while he so lives, 
while we can yet claim kinship with him and not blush for our 
own unworthiness, then, under God's Providence, America will 
live as a Nation, and live in freedom and honor among men ! 



24 



